Senate Dems Mark One-Year Anniversary Of End of adultBasic.

A Group Of State Senate Democrats ... ... gathered to mark the year anniversary of the end of the state's adultBasic health insurance program, which offered subsidized coverage for about 40,000 low-income Pennsylvanians.

During an event at the Capitol Media Center, Sens. Mike Stack of Philadelphia; Judy Schwank of Berks County; Lisa Boscola of Northampton County and John Blake of Lackawanna County, called on the Corbett administration to reinstate the program.

Administration officials pulled the plug on the program last February, arguing that the state didn't have the money to keep it going. The subsidized program was started by former GOP Gov. Tom Ridge and expanded by Democrat Ed Rendell.

Former adultBasic beneficiaries were to have been moved into the state's Special Care program, which primarily provides emergency and catastrophic care.

In the year since the old program ended, only about 40 percent of former adultBasic beneficiaries have been moved into Special Care, Stack said, citing data compiled by the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, a left-leaning think thank in Harrisburg.

Schwank said the administration's decision to end the program meant that 612 people in her district lost their coverage, many of whom have chronic conditions that require extensive care.

"It deserves to be reinstated," she said.

Stack reiterated funding solutions he first broached last year, including a temporary stop to the phase-out of the state's Capital Stock & Franchise tax.

The Republican administration previously rejected those suggestions, saying the insurance program had become too expensive to maintain in a roiling economy,